Ukraine’s view is clear: The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) is being used as a propaganda and influence platform by the Kremlin in Europe.
As Russia's war in Ukraine drags on and Moscow accelerates hybrid warfare attacks across the continent, more European governments are coming around to that way of thinking. What to do about it is a more difficult question. Any action to limit the church’s activities could be seen to undermine religious freedom and feed Kremlin propaganda narratives about widespread Russophobia in Europe.
The dilemma echoes conversations around how to deal with Russia-backed media operations in Europe. In both cases Estonia, a former Soviet state bordering Russia, is pushing ambitious legislation that could, if passed, serve as a model for other European countries vulnerable to Russian influence operations.
Estonia’s moves against the ROC are pushing the limits of its constitution. Last week Estonia’s parliament, the Riigikogu, passed its Churches and Congregations Act through its final reading, with 68 votes in favor and 17 against. The act will force the Estonian Christian Orthodox Church to sever its ties with the Moscow Patriarchate, which manages the ROC and whose leader, Patriarch Kirill, supports the war against Ukraine.
The law has gone through a number of readings, with one draft initially rejected in May by President Alan Karias, who called it “unconstitutional” and disproportionately restricted “freedom of association and religion.”
The amended law now needs approval from the president before entering into force.
Estonia’s Baltic neighbours have taken similar steps. Latvia’s Saeima passed a law in September 2022 requiring the Latvian Orthodox Church to sever ties with Moscow, while Lithuania in 2023 forged closer ties with Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the leader of the Istanbul-based Eastern Orthodox Church.
Estonia’s Baltic neighbours have taken similar steps. Latvia’s Saeima passed a law in September 2022 requiring the Latvian Orthodox Church to sever ties with Moscow, while Lithuania in 2023 forged closer ties with Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the leader of the Istanbul-based Eastern Orthodox Church.
Elsewhere in Europe, security services are increasingly worried that the ROC is being used as a vehicle for malign Russian influence.
In April, the Czech Security Information Service (BIS) revealed that an Orthodox church in the town of Karlovy Vary was used by Russian agents for covert meetings and influence operations aimed at destabilising the European Union.
“The Moscow Patriarchate is not a genuine religious institution — it is a Potemkin structure, subordinated to Russian intelligence services, both historically and today,” Jan Lipavský, the Czech Republic’s minister of foreign affairs, told The Parliament. “It acts as a tool of Kremlin influence.”
Some fear that Russian Orthodox churches are being established near strategically important sites. A new church on the outskirts of the Swedish town of Västerås has raised concerns over a potential threat to Sweden’s national security due to its sensitive location near an airport, a water treatment plant and energy companies — all elements that have been targeted by Russian influence operations before.
Similar allegations surround churches in Norway, where the ROC has been purchasing property on the coast near significant military sites.
Marek Kohv, head of security and resilience at the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS), said it would be naïve to think that the ROC is a purely religious enterprise, operating independently of the Kremlin’s grand strategy.
“In Europe, there is misunderstanding over how the Russian state is operating. There is no autonomous sector in Russian society who can operate without approval or coordination from the very centre of the state,” Kohv told The Parliament. “Russia uses these as platforms for intelligence operations so they can at any moment they can actually turn on this switch and use this as a platform for whatever they want to do.”
Russian soft power
Across Europe, branches of the ROC operate under a hierarchical structure that ultimately answers to Moscow. While often registered as independent entities, these local parishes are canonically and administratively tied to the Patriarchate, which retains authority over leadership appointments, doctrine, and assets.
While the Kremlin doesn’t control the church directly, it is Patriarch Kirill, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, who makes decisions affecting the church both within and outside Russia. Kirill, who was put on the Czech sanctions list in 2023, has called the Russian invasion of Ukraine a “holy war.”
Kirill is “a vigorous supporter of the war, lending moral legitimacy,” Catherine Wanner, a professor of Russian history at Pennsylvania State University, told The Parliament. She said he lends “moral encouragement in the overtaking of Ukraine and the dissolving of its sovereignty in the name of furthering what is known in Russia as traditional family values and pushing back against a ‘gayropa’ European agenda. That also happens to include NATO membership.”
Ukraine has brought numerous criminal proceedings against clergymen of the now-banned Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), accusing them of aiding Russia — including gathering intelligence on Ukrainian military movements.
In the Czech Republic, Russian agents — some with direct links to hostile actions against EU member states — allegedly used the Orthodox church in Karlovy Vary as a covert meeting hub, according to BIS officials. Nikolai Lishchenyuk, the former head of that parish and a staunch Kremlin loyalist, was expelled last year on national security grounds, accused of using his religious post to spread Kremlin propaganda, particularly against Ukraine.
Earlier this year, Patriarch Kirill discreetly transferred the ownership of the Karlovy Vary church to the Patriarchate’s Hungarian branch, in an apparent attempt to pre-empt any attempt by the Czech authorities to freeze or seize its assets.
Estonia's perception risk
Even if moves against the ROC are legal, there is a risk of feeding Russian narratives that European countries are unfairly targeting ethnic Russians or waging war on Christianity and traditional values — a message that resonates on the political right across Europe and the US.
In a speech last year before becoming US vice-president, JD Vance accused Ukraine of mounting an “assault on traditional Christian communities” after it passed a law banning religious organisations with ties to Russia, primarily targeting the UOC. The speech was applauded by lobbyists with ties to the ROC who had been trying to push US lawmakers to make aid to Ukraine conditional on religious freedom.
“Russian disinformation and propaganda has been very successful with MAGA people,” said Kohv, referring to US President Donald Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ movement. “They are basically repeating many, many narratives that Russia is producing.”
Mark Galeotti, a specialist in transnational crime and Russian security affairs and director of the consultancy Mayak Intelligence, says the risks of taking action could be greater for countries other than Ukraine, where the war has caused many ethnic Russians to rally around the Ukrainian flag.
“To a large extent, it has worked in Ukraine because there are a lot of people, Russian Orthodoxes, who nonetheless were dismayed by what was happening in Russia, dismayed by the patriarch's affiliation with the Kremlin,” Galeotti told The Parliament. “They were already looking to detach themselves, thinking that their faith has nothing to do with Russian politics.”
For Estonia and other EU countries, any moves against the ROC risk causing a rift within the bloc. Right-wing nationalists such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán tend not only to be more sympathetic to Putin, but also to hew closely to the social conservatism advocated by the ROC: Orbán’s government, for instance, has banned Pride marches.
Estonia pushes back
Estonia’s government has evidently calculated that these are risks worth taking in order to address the alleged security risks presented by the ROC.
“We see that the same pattern [of Russian influence] happens in different parts of Europe. It's nothing new. If it doesn't work in Estonia, let's try it in Moldova. If it doesn't work in Moldova, let's do it in Romania,” Ringo Ringvee, an adviser to the Estonian interior ministry, told The Parliament. “It’s the same pattern in different countries. It's a big question as to how to prevent these kinds of things happening.”
Last year, the government expelled Yevgeniy Reshestnikov, the head of the ROC’s Estonian branch, by not renewing his residence permit, after he publicly defended Russia's military activities.
The Church and Congregations Bill would go further, effectively annexing the Estonian Christian Orthodox Church from the ROC.
Annexing the local branches would cut the Estonian church’s administrative connections to the Moscow Patriarchate. Any congregation that refused the annexation would lose its legal status as a religious organisation, said Ringvee.
“Religious associations have a specific legal entity status,” he said. “If they [the Estonian Christian Orthodox Church] don't change their statute, if they do not cut these ties, they may operate still as a community that comes together and does their thing, but not as a church.”
Proponents of the bill say it would prevent extremism, while critics say it could worsen tensions between ethnic Estonians and ethnic Russians.
“There is a minority community in Estonia that already feels somewhat detached from the mainstream of politics, somewhat mistreated,” said Galeotti. “The concern is that a body like the ROC, that has great legitimacy and authority, could be used to mobilise that to further disrupt the country, because this is really what the Russians are after. They're about disruption.”
At the same time, he said that the bill's blanket ban risks punishing all ROC clergymen without distinction — with potentially harmful effects because not all of them support Putin’s aggressive stance towards Russia’s neighbours.
“We've got cases of very brave figures of the ROC inside Russia who have come out against the war,” Galeotti said. “There's quite a spectrum inside Russia, and that applies even more so outside Russia.”
This story, first published on 10 June 2025, has been updated to reflect the passage of the draft law to its final reading.
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